As with the previous games, the player controls an unknown prisoner who was caught in an Imperial ambush while attempting to cross the border into Skyrim. Headed to Helgen to be executed, the player is about to be beheaded when a Dragon arrives and destroys the town. Revealed to be the latest "Dovahkiin", a Dragonborn, an individual with the body of a mortal and the soul of a Dragon, Skyrim's civil war is the last in a sequence of prophetic events foretold by the Elder Scrolls.